Chicago was named the fourth most economically powerful city in the world by The Atlantic. Meanwhile, the idea that the rest of Illinois should separate from Chicago is still getting play. The Huffington Post Chicago sums up the dramatics nicely.

While we're on the topic of city cred, Chicago ranked 26th in the Mori Memorial Foundation's Global Power City Index this year, we're the fourth most walkable city in America (previously), and came in sixth in the Chicago Council of Global Affairs' 2010 Global Cities Index (previously). So we've got that going for us, which is nice.